I use a structured approach to prioritizing features. For each of the features, I analyze the impact, urgency, strategic goal alignment, cost vs effort.
Impact - I evaluate the number of customers or which customer segment these features would benefit or evaluate if this feature mitigates any existing risks. I will also analyze if the features impact short term or long term goals. For Example - A feature addressing a customer pain point would take a higher precedence over a performance issue if a temporary workaround is available. Although the performance issue fix will benefit in the long term, but it can be deferred to a later sprint.
Urgency - I would evaluate to see if any of the features comes with a
Tight deadline - For ex - PCI Compliance. This would make this feature a higher priority as without a compliant software you can’t exist in the market.
Competitive advantage (Opportunity Cost) - If the feature is critical to getting a competitive edge then this feature should be prioritized higher as sometimes delaying on an opportunity cost has a higher loss.
Strategic Goal Alignment - Evaluate the tasks against the business goals in place like - Revenue growth, retention rate, CSat. If any of the features directly contribute to the goals then they would take higher precedence. There has to be a balance between short term and long term alignment here as well.
Team effort - In collaboration with cross functional teams, the effort to build a feature should be considered. A high reward feature with lower efforts should be prioritized before a low reward, high effort features.
With this approach I build my prioritized list of features for developement.
